Rahall: Pelosi Personally Told Bush Of Syria Trip And He Did Not Object

[babylonsister]

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/04/08/rahall-syria-trip/

Rahall: Pelosi Personally Told Bush Of Syria Trip And He Did Not Object

Rep. Nick Rahall (D-WV), who traveled last week with Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) as part of her delegation to the Middle East, said this morning on C-Span that Pelosi told Bush of the trip to Syria a day before they left, and Bush did not object.

Rahall said, “The Speaker had met with President Bush in the halls of the U.S. Capitol just the day before we left and mentioned to him that we were going to Syria. No response at all from the President.”

Watch it at link:

Despite the White House’s public rhetoric that the trip was a “bad idea,” President Bush “did not tell her not to go, nor did the State Department tell us not to go,” Rahall said. “The State Department was certainly aware of our traveling to Syria and our full itinerary. And there were State Department officials in every meeting that we had on this codel. So that is all hogwash as far as I’m concerned.”

Transcript:

CALLER: I am a Republican. And I thought under the Logan Act that Ms. Pelosi has committed a felony because under our Constitution, section 2 of the Constitution, that the president is the one who conducts — sends the people off, to conduct our foreign affairs. Now he told her he didn’t want her to go. That is a violation of the Logan Act. She should be hauled off in jail because if i was to commit a felony, i’d be hauled off and gone to jail.

RAHALL: First of all, that’s baloney. We were in violation of no u.s. laws. Second of all, the President did not tell her not to go, nor did the State Department tell us not to go. There were three Republican members of Congress in Damascus a few days before our trip. There was a Republican member of Congress in Damascus meeting with the President after our trip.

The Speaker had met with President Bush in the halls of the U.S. Capitol just the day before we left and mentioned to him that we were going to Syria. No response at all from the President. The State Department was certainly aware of our traveling to Syria and our full itinerary. And there were State Department officials in every meeting that we had on this codel. So that is all hogwash as far as I’m concerned.

[orpupilofnature57]

1. It would be just like Shrub to play both sides of the fence ,His party

should wake up and realize they are his newest victim.

[frogcycle]

2. he didn't respond

because rove wasn't there to tell him what to say. just like "my pet goat"

it's likely that those pictures of her whispering something to him are her saying "your fly is unzipped" and him wondering what to do about it

[ChairmanAgnostic]

3. He probably thought that was someplace near Paris, France.

No, he is not that dumb. Sly, evil, but not the village idiot we like to picture. So far, everything is going according to plan. He has incredible power and uses it. He has no natural enemy, no morals and no regrets.

[Vickers]

4. "No response at all from the President.”

SHOCKING!!!

[ljm2002]

5. Why object...

...when you know you can use it to make political hay.

In a saner world, he would not be able to make hay, because people would know that members of his own party had gone over there just days before; and that a member of his own party accompanied Pelosi and other Dems on their trip -- so they would rightly take him to task for singling out Pelosi. In a saner world, people would know that these same pundits and politicians took the opposite side of the argument just a few short years ago, when Clinton was President.

But in this world, he knows he can lie / misstate / omit facts at will and the press will oblige by meekly jotting down his talking points and passing them on to an unsuspecting populace as the truth. So he could nod and stay quiet when they told his Administration they were going, knowing he could use it to his advantage, and that he would of course do so without any compunction as to any quaint notions of "truth".